[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 8]
[House]
[Pages 11650-11653]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              IMMIGRATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2013, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. 
King) for the remainder of the time until 10 p.m.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I want to say, first it's a privilege 
to be recognized to address you here on the floor of the House of 
Representatives.
  And it's also interesting and engaging to listen to the gentlelady 
from Minnesota as she delivered her presentation here tonight with 
typical vigor and precision.
  I looked at that poster, and it was very interesting to me. And so I 
see that $400 million in 3 hours, and I divide that out, multiply it 
times 24, then multiply that times 56 days, and I come up with a number 
that's $179.2 billion increased national debt in the period of time 
that none is registered.
  And so putting this in perspective, it's just another example of an 
administration that hasn't been straight with us.
  So, I come here, Mr. Speaker, to address this situation of 
immigration, as the gentlelady from Minnesota has. It's something 
that's important for all of us to understand the big picture, the full 
picture. And it is about economics, it's about culture, it's about 
civilization, it's about balancing our budget, it's about the vitality 
of the United States of America, and we have to be weighing all of 
these factors.
  The immigration issue is the most complex and the most far-reaching 
topic that we ever deal with here in the United States Congress. And we 
think that ObamaCare is complicated. It is. It's a lot of pages of 
legislation. But also the bad things that are flowing from it were 
predicted here from this spot by many of us on our side of the aisle. 
It was understandable for us.
  But because it's somewhat objective to be able to look at the 
formulas and see what's going to happen and know what insurance 
policies do, the immigration issue goes deeper. And it's the 
multiplication of current demographics and how they blend with future 
demographics, and what we might do, and all of the things that flow 
from it.
  So as the gentlelady from Minnesota said, the net cost on the 
Senate's Gang of Eight bill turns out to be $6.33 trillion, $6.3 
trillion, Mr. Speaker. And that's what that group will generate. Let's 
see--the net cost, $6.3 trillion, they will pay, there's $9.4 trillion 
all together dealing with this. There will be $3.1 trillion in taxes 
paid. The benefits, $9.4 trillion in benefits drawn down by the group 
of people who would be given amnesty under the Senate version of the 
bill.
  They would pay $3.1 trillion in taxes over their lifetime, and the 
net figure

[[Page 11651]]

would be $6.3 trillion that would come out of the pockets of the 
taxpayers to add on to that nearly $17 trillion in national debt that 
we have today.
  And the study that was done by Robert Rector of the Heritage 
Foundation, I saw a little piece on the Internet here a couple of 
nights ago where someone described it as ``the much maligned study.'' 
Well, I'm occasionally the much maligned Member of Congress, but I 
don't notice that that makes me any less accurate or any less factual 
in the positions that I take. They are soundly based, and so were the 
analyses and the study done by Robert Rector in his study to show us 
the net cost of the amnesty act that's passed out of the Senate today, 
and not yet messaged to the House, but passed out of the Senate.
  And that's just the economic cost. And he showed, by formula, there 
are always exceptions to this. When you're dealing with human beings, 
there are always exceptions.
  But by formula, the newly arriving, those that are here illegally, 
those that would come in the next waves or two, as Mrs. Bachmann said, 
there'd be an average of about a tenth-grade education. People who are 
high school dropouts or high school graduates, on average, cannot 
sustain themselves in this society without welfare benefits.
  We are a cradle-to-grave welfare state. We have at least 80 different 
means-tested welfare programs in the United States.

                              {time}  2145

  They range from the food stamp program to temporary assistance to 
needy families to the WIC program. And it goes on and on. The heat 
subsidies, rent subsidies. No one has them all memorialized, Mr. 
Speaker, which means no one can figure out how they interrelate with 
each other, how they interact with each other, or how people react on 
that interaction of those 80 different means-tested Federal welfare 
programs.
  But we know this. At a certain point, if you pile on more and more 
welfare, even those who are quite ambitious are eventually going to be 
living better than those that are working hard and smart. And so what 
it does is in a way it bribes people to leave the workforce and go on 
the welfare roles or transition from the workforce into the welfare 
roles. That's going on all over America. That's one of the reasons why, 
in this country of about 316 million people in this country, we have so 
many people that are on the welfare system and this workforce that Mrs. 
Bachmann talked about of 22 million who are looking for a full-time 
job.
  Here's some other data from the Department of Labor's Web site. You 
go and look at the numbers there of those who are simply not in the 
workforce. They might have retired early on their own money, they might 
be on SSI disability, they might be on anything, all but unemployment. 
Those folks might be homemakers. They might be in school. They might be 
doing nothing. But when you add all of them up that are simply not in 
the workforce, of working age, that number comes to over 88 million 
people. And when you add the official unemployed to that, some number 
approaching 13 million people, it's clear that for the last 5 to 6 
years we have had over 100 million people in this country who are 
simply not in the workforce but are of working age.
  Now, I don't conclude that every one of them can go to work or are 
suitable for work, but I would say this. If we need more workforce, Mr. 
Speaker, why in the world would we grant amnesty, a path to 
citizenship, and full access to those 80 different means-tested Federal 
welfare programs for 11 million or 22 million or 33 million people that 
are in the United States illegally? Why would we give them American 
jobs when we have Americans here who are not in the workforce?
  One of the jobs we should do in this Congress is constantly be 
thinking and pushing and promoting legislation that increases the 
average annual individual productivity of the people in our country. 
And I watched as some of the libertarian CATO economists will tell us, 
well, we have to open our borders and bring in 11 million or 22 million 
or 33 million or 44 million or 55 million people because that's how we 
grow our economy, and we can't grow our economy unless we do that. Some 
even say that the fertility rate is higher with newly arriving 
immigrants, especially illegal immigrants. I think that that's drawing 
a conclusion that's not necessarily supportable by the data that's out 
there. It might just be by observation.
  But to bring people in and give them jobs while Americans are looking 
for jobs is the wrong thing to do. And just because somebody increases 
the GDP doesn't mean they're a net contributor to our economy or our 
society. Say there's someone 50 years old and never worked a day in 
their life and never lifted a finger. It's completely possible in this 
society today. That person hasn't contributed to the GDP by anything 
they've produced, perhaps by what they've consumed, but at best they 
can be break even. They can't be a net increase.
  But if that individual goes out and does an hour's worth of work and 
receives an hour's worth of pay and produces an hour's worth of 
product, good, or service that has marketable value here or abroad, 
they've contributed to the gross domestic product by the value of that 
hour's work that they've contributed.
  So, by that theory, CATO economists say all the people that we would 
legalize in amnesty that are illegal today, presuming that they will 
work, they will help grow our economy. Sure, they would, but they also 
would contribute to the necessary loss to the taxpayers because they 
can't sustain themselves.
  That doesn't mean that there aren't good, smart, productive legal 
immigrants that can contribute and can be a net increase to our 
economy. There are quite a number of them, if you count them. But 
statistically, by a wide margin, the lower and undereducated cannot 
contribute. They cannot be a net contributor to this society. That's 
proven clearly by the Heritage Foundation study done by Robert Rector. 
It's something the American people need to look at. It's not been 
effectively rebutted by the people that disagree. They have another 
agenda.
  So I have put this argument out in this way, Mr. Speaker. I used to 
take the position that there was nothing in the Senate Gang of Eight 
amnesty bill that was good for the American people. Why would Americans 
do this? Why? Mark Steyn wrote an op-ed about 3 or 4 months ago. He 
laid out some of the data, and the last sentence was one word, a 
question, ``Why?'' Why would America do this? Why would we bring in the 
equivalent of the population of Canada and throw in New Zealand's 
population while we're at it, if I remember his statement correctly. 
Why?
  Well, not because it contributes to the social, economic, or cultural 
well-being of the United States of America. That wouldn't be why. That 
is what kind of an immigration policy we need, yes. But it's because it 
isn't true that no Americans benefit from this. If you look at narrow 
self-interests, there are three categories of Americans that benefit 
from the illegal immigration that they would like to see legalized and 
they would like to see the perpetual flow of new illegal immigration 
coming in so there are people lining up for the next amnesty. There are 
three classes of people, three categories of people.
  One is the elitists that believe that somehow they've got a 
birthright to live in gated communities and have cheap labor to clean 
their houses and mow their lawns and weed their flower gardens and 
maybe wash their car and make sure their lives are as smooth as they'd 
like to have them be. That's an elitist attitude if they think they 
want to have discounted labor to do that.
  I had a meeting with a group of elitists in the great Northeast and 
one of them said to me, I went down to the day labor parking place and 
I needed somebody to come up and weed my garden and clean up around the 
place. I offered him $15 an hour, and nobody would take the money. 
You've got to pass an immigration bill. I don't have enough access to 
people that can take care of my lawn and my garden and my yard. He 
thought $15 an hour should

[[Page 11652]]

have hired anybody, but I'm really certain that it's been a lot of 
years since he's worked for $15 an hour.
  So I said to him, If you can't hire somebody to mow your lawn and if 
you don't have time to do that yourself, maybe you should get an 
apartment down in the big city and sell your house to somebody that can 
either pay the wages necessary or do it themselves. That's how the 
economy has to work. It's supply and demand. And the value of a 
commodity in the marketplace is determined by supply and demand, Mr. 
Speaker. Whether it's corn or beans or gold or oil or labor, it's 
supply and demand.
  And people say, well, there's work that Americans won't do. I 
completely reject that theory. It's offensive to me to hear from 
elitists that there's work that Americans won't do. I don't know if you 
can find work that my family hasn't done. I'm pretty confident you 
can't find work we've refused to do. But we try to be, I often say, 
hardworking Americans.
  Well, we also have to be smart-working Americans. Smart and 
hardworking Americans. It's not good enough in this society to just 
work hard anymore. You've got to work smart at the same time.
  So, when we do that, we market our wages to the point where we can 
sustain ourselves in this society. Or, if you can't get that done, you 
supplement it by some of the 80 different means-tested Federal welfare 
programs. But when you think that there's work that Americans won't do, 
when people say that, I would argue, no, I think that you can hire an 
American to do anything, anything that's decent and just and right and 
moral.
  There's honor and dignity in all work. You just have to bid up the 
price until you get the people to do the work. I've had to do that in 
most of my business life.
  I started a construction company in 1975. And, yes, I had to hire 
people, and I was proud of the work we did. We put some long, hard 
hours in in difficult conditions. But in order to have people show up 
for work the next day, you had to pay them an adequate wage for the day 
before. And when I found that I couldn't hire the right people for the 
wages I was paying, I raised the wages and I increased the benefit 
package, and we hired the people we needed and we kept the people that 
we needed. That seems to be beyond the realm of the way of thinking of 
a lot of elitists' attitudes here that say there's work that Americans 
won't do.
  So I just say, okay, I'll prove it to you. Somebody is going to have 
to front the money to do this. But I'd say this. I can hire Bill 
Clinton to mow my lawn. I might have to pay him a million dollars, but 
I could hire him to mow my law. I might have to pay him $2 million or 
$10 million, depending how much I might want to tease this situation.
  But you understand my point, Mr. Speaker. You have to bid it up. At 
some point, somebody's going to take the bid. Just like when you're 
waiting to get on an airplane and somebody has to get bumped from a 
seat and they start to auction that off and say, I'll give you a $400 
ticket to fly someplace else. Somebody decides to take that. If not, 
they up the ante again and again. Up the ante, up the ante, and 
somebody will take the bid. You auction this off in a way until 
somebody steps up to do the work.
  Americans will always do the work, Mr. Speaker. We have always done 
the work. And we need to keep the work here at home and we need to make 
sure that the people in this country that have the skills and have the 
desire are going to work. If they don't have the desire, it might just 
be that the safety net that is our 80 different means-tested welfare 
programs has turned into a hammock and they've gotten lazy on us. If 
that happens, you need to dial that down a little bit so the hammock is 
no longer so much a hammock as it is a safety net. When that happens, 
some of those folks will decide, I'm going to climb out of this safety 
net and I'm going to go to work, and I'm going to contribute to the GDP 
and I'm going earn enough that I can sustain myself and my family.
  There was a time not that long ago--25 years ago, maybe now 30 years 
ago--when a young man could grow up and graduate from high school and 
look over to the beef plant and decide, I want to get a job there and 
go punch that time clock and make good wages and make my living in 
there processing meat. And you need that if you are going to eat it, 
anyway. So they would aspire to do so and go punch that time clock and 
work there every day, and they would work there for 40, 45 years. And 
they would be making, each year, about the same amount of money as a 
teacher does with a college degree. And that went on until they started 
bringing illegal labor in to drive the wages down in the packing plant.
  Today, teachers are making about twice as much as that guy that's 
working in the packing plant. And that young man--especially young men, 
and young women also. But that young man now that decides that he 
doesn't have a future ahead in college, he can no longer go in and 
punch the time clock and make a living and pay for a modest house over 
a lifetime and maybe provide an opportunity for his kids that want to 
go to college. That opportunity isn't there anymore.
  So they drift off onto the welfare programs, and some of them drift 
off into drugs and some of them leave the community because they're 
being underbid by people who will work cheaper, that are more mobile, 
that aren't lawfully present in the United States, that came here to 
live in the shadows. And my colleagues will say, well, we have to bring 
the 11 million out of the shadows because it's the right thing to do. 
Well, is it? What's our moral obligation for those folks?
  I believe in the dignity of every human person. I think we owe them 
that respect and that dignity. But to solve a problem that they created 
by their own action by sacrificing the rule of law and rewarding people 
who broke the law with a path to citizenship, American jobs, the right 
to vote as a reward for breaking the law, do you think, Mr. Speaker, 
they're going to raise their children then to respect the rule of law 
if they're the beneficiaries of breaking it by the tens of millions--11 
million, 22 million, 33 million, maybe 44 million people? It changes 
the culture in the United States of America when you inject millions of 
people in who are rewarded for breaking the law.
  My friends down in the Senate side and some here in the House will 
say, But they have to go to the back of the line. It's not amnesty. 
They're going to have to pay a fine. They're going to have to pay back 
taxes. It's an onerous road to get to citizenship under the plan of the 
Gang of Eight.
  Well, is it as onerous as maybe living in the shadows? They're not 
living in the shadows, Mr. Speaker. They come into my office. They plug 
their Obama phones in to charge them, which is about the height of an 
entitlement attitude. They're not living in the shadows. They're out in 
the open lobbying Congress as open and blatant as can be with 
disrespect for the rule of law. They erode the rule of law.
  By the way, for the 11-plus million people, outside this country 
there are at least 5 million who respect the law, who are lined up in 
their home country the right way to come into America the legal way. 
And what do we say to them? We're going to take 11 million or 22 
million or 33 million people and we're going to make them go to what we 
define as the back of the line? But if it's in the United States, it's 
not the back of the line. The line is outside the United States, 5 
million long. So are they going to say, Go to the back of line; go back 
to your home country and get in the back of the line?
  Have you ever, Mr. Speaker, stood in a line and thought, Well, I'm 
almost there. It's been a long wait. I want to get into the movie 
theater. Maybe I've got to visit the men's room, and the line gets 
longer on you instead of shorter. What's more frustrating than having 
respect for rules and the rule of law and having to back up because 
somebody else cut in front? And how long are you going to have patience 
with that?
  I oppose amnesty. I oppose perpetual and retroactive amnesty, and I 
support

[[Page 11653]]

the rule of law. I'm going to continue to defend this rule of law and 
defend this country so that we can send to our children the promise 
that came from our Founding Fathers: the future of an American destiny 
above and beyond the Shining City on the Hill.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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